Television cannibalism stunt goes global

Newspapers and broadcasters from around the world have picked up on a Dutch television stunt in which two presenters claim to eat a small piece of each other’s flesh.

The show, due to be aired on Wednesday, features Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno from youth channel BNN, allegedly eating a small portion of human meat on the show Proefkonijnen (guinea pigs).
One trailer for the programme shows a surgeon appearing to remove a small piece of flesh from the buttock of one presenter while the other people present joke about putting a photograph on microblogging service Twitter. Another trailer shows small pieces of meat being fried in oil.Cannibalism
Britain’s Telegraph newspaper says the show has ’caused a cannibalism storm’.
And Sky Television says ‘a lawyer advised the show’s producers that while cannibalism is not itself against the law, the presenters or the surgeon who operated on them could face legal difficulties.’
America’s ABC news said the stunt is ‘the most disgusting’ story of the day.Hoax
In the Netherlands, opinion is divided about whether the presenters actually do eat human flesh or whether the trailer is a hoax.
In 2007, BNN staged a tv reality show which centred on people competing for a dying woman’s kidneys. That show turned out to be a hoax aimed at raising awareness for kidney patients.